Pricing Design

By Dan Mall

Pricing projects can feel tricky, but it doesn't have to be. Dan Mall explains how to earn more, by understanding what goes into a price (and why hourly rates don't work) and what your clients really want-and are willing to pay for. Learn the right questions to ask and when, and ways to turn client requirements into numbers, with a real-world ex

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Book Apart
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962491020

Dan Mall

Dan Mall is a husband, dad, teacher, creative director, designer, founder, and entrepreneur from Philly. He runs Design System University, where he creates, collects, and curates curriculum, content, and community to help enterprise teams design at scale. Previously, Dan ran design system consultancy SuperFriendly for over a decade. Dan writes about design systems, process, and leadership and other issues on his site danmall.com, in his weekly newsletter, and on Twitter and Instagram.

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Copyright © 2016 Dan Mall

All rights reserved

Publisher: Jeffrey Zeldman

Designer: Jason Santa Maria

Executive Director: Katel LeDû

Editor: Tina Lee

Technical Editor: Jason Blumer

Copyeditor: Lisa Maria Martin

Proofreader: Caren Litherland

Compositor: Rob Weychert

Ebook Producer: Ron Bilodeau

ISBN: 978-1-9375573-7-9

A Book Apart

New York, New York

http://abookapart.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

More From A Book Apart Briefs

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1. Pricing Methods

Chapter 2. Value-Based Pricing

Chapter 3. A Pricing Case Study

Chapter 4. Value Pricing: What to Expect

Resources

Acknowledgments

References

Index

About the Author

About A Book Apart

FOREWORD

YOU ARE GOING TO

make more money from this book than you spent on it.

You are going to read it—probably more than once. You’re going to highlight quite a few passages. You’re going to have your fair share of aha moments. You’re going to take the lessons to heart. And eventually, you’re going to make adjustments to how you price your work based on what you’ll read here. You’ll be more confident. You’ll ask for more than you’ve asked for before. And if you’re good at what you do, you’ll get it. You’ll start making more money for yourself. Your business will grow. And you may even hire some people to help you with the newfound work.

You are going to make more money from this book than Dan Mall ever will.

Dan is okay with that. Because that’s what Dan does for a living. He builds value. And as a designer, Dan understands that his clients will make more money from his work than he ever will, especially if he does it right. And quite honestly, that’s the key to pricing work. Understanding that the people you’re doing it for stand to benefit considerably if you do it right. And that’s why Dan charges them according to the value of the work. Because Dan makes money for people.

And yet, designers (and I love you all) get so weird about money. We hem and haw when it comes up. Our hands get clammy. Our hearts start racing. We start sweating. We hope the client brings it up so we don’t have to. Money makes us nervous. And there’s absolutely no reason for this. Everyone who will ever hire you has exchanged money for services. They probably exchanged money for coffee this very morning. It’s a daily occurrence. So treat it that way.

Dan gets it. And like all of us, he learned some of those lessons the hard way. And because he’s a good guy, he wants to share what he’s learned with you. Because he wants you to be happy, pay your bills, and have a good career.

You should listen to him.

—Mike Monteiro

INTRODUCTION

I WANT TO

help you make more money.

Maybe this story sounds familiar. When I went out on my own, after a decade at more than a few agencies, I settled on charging $100/hour, as that’s what I’d heard most freelancers charged. Clients hardly pushed back. Projects went well, and I raised my rates—I got to $150/hour before customers balked. Agencies would contact me to do design comps for $150/hour, up to $1,500. (I eventually learned this was shorthand for We think this shouldn’t take more than ten hours. More on this later.) By then, I could do a round of work in about three hours, which meant 1) I’d make $450, and 2) I’d leave a lot of money on the table.

So I tried an experiment. On the next project, when I asked, How much do you want to spend? and they said, One hundred and fifty dollars per hour, up to fifteen hundred, I countered with a flat fee of $1,000. I was happy because it was way more than $450 (I was always pretty good at estimating my hours), and my client was happy because it was still less than their budget: